


Sing Down the Seas

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Engaging gap-filler, Canon - Enhances original, Characters - Strongly in character, Characters - Well-handled emotions, General, Other - Freeform, Plot - Disturbing/frightening/unsettling, Plot - Good pacing, Plot - Tear-jerker, Writing - Clear prose, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Experimental, Writing - Mythic/Poetic, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introspective madness after the Silmaril is thrown into the sea - Maglor's point of view. Angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Down the Seas

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

  


The stars shine upon the waves, far out into the darkness, until sky and sea become as one, indistinguishable, inseparable, immutable as the roar of the surf.

  


I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. And be they open or closed, my eyes see only the fields of stars and water, stretched out upon an infinite horizon. The sound of it! Ah but it is exquisite torture, to hear the waves lap the earth, greedy for the taste of mortality. Thus did the water drink the blood of Alqualondë, rushing to devour the scarlet sands, the ash-strewn beaches. Offerings of kelp and the gold-green garlands of the ocean heaped upon the shores to be the breeding grounds of the tormenting flies--shall I never be free of that intolerable, intoxicating hum of wings? Such is the bounty of the sea that engulfs the world in incessant song. Oh but I should be ashamed to call myself a bard, for though I sing a hundred Ages of the world, never could I give life, nor digest the dead. It is too great a matter for me, for one who longed to touch but one jewel rather than create anew. 

  


I sought to make, to be, to raise high the name of my people in song and craft my staves of blood rather than air. How else could we achieve greatness? I have laid low the best of my people in order to lift them high in a harmony that would touch the heavens. Yet the sky silences, and the sea o'erwhelms my voice. My voice. What is one voice, be it ever so pure? Mandos haunts our steps with but a word, yet he is not the creator, not the One. And the One needs not my cry--roughened now by wind, hoarsened by use, a continuous, salty exhalation. My throat burns, and it seems that the flame of the Silmaril has infected me: I cannot cease, cannot pause an instant. My tongue is parched, yet not for words; my throat is raw, yet sound comes forth; my hands... my hands are weary with the weight and heat of a thousand dreadful deeds, yet they remember but the latest. 

  


They remember the heat, the pain that could not but pleasure he who bore it. 'Twas never pain that overthrew my reason--nay, for we are born to suffer. To suffer gloriously, and forget slowly, and fade at last to nothing--this is our fate, yet we were never meant to be silent. Yet it would have silenced me, that jewel! I would have lost myself in its wonder, and so I am glad beyond words or reason that my body remembered pain. Such eloquent simplicity is in the language of fire! It speaks to us, to all who bear within them the spark of the Flame Imperishable, and that original light is in me. For am I not a son of Fëanor? He whose spirit knew well the language of flame, and fled its house with such magnificent haste that there was naught but ash left in its wake. 

  


Ash--the mark of brilliance beyond containment. Who could withhold such light as dazzled my eyes and seared my flesh, marking my very soul? Sooner try to contain the sea in a conch shell! One is equally doomed to fail, either way. Let it overflow its confines! Let the sky and sea steal my forfeit song, let them draw it out of me and take thereby the last spark of my father's creation! Loud in my ears do the waves echo in harmony ever fiercer, ever more joyous, and I am inebriated. I am inundated, soaked through and through, and yet that ember burns still, child of a Silmaril! It burns, refusing to quench itself or be quenched, and it will not let me go. My voice, my lungs, my heart, my soul, every fiber of my being are but an offering--fuel, an instrument to be played until broken. But oh the glory of that slow-wrought breaking, which I feel in myself! I seek it--I crave it, I strain towards that moment of perfect destruction and open myself to a Music so vast it should shatter me like glass. The surf thunders some nights, and my head pounds and my heart aches in my chest, yet I remain and out-sing the sun. Dear Arien, flame most constant, yet not so brilliant as that which lies within now. Within, and upon the bottom of the sea, for I hear the voices of the world, and wait for them to founder me.

  


The waves are steady tonight, ebbing coyly, teasing me that I do not follow. But I need not follow them. I know that I am drowning, and drowning slowly. In time, I promise, and fear not to be forsworn, for in truth, the sea's promise is older than mine. Take the Silmaril! Take it! I cannot hold it, cannot touch it, cannot contain it--take it! Devour it, as thou hast all things devoured, even stone! Even guilt. Even sorrow. Light thou catchest, and thou dost wash the air from its heights with thy tears! Take it! Drown it and release the flame within, that it may touch upon all shores of the world! And so the sea-swell took the Silmaril, and I wait only for it to take me as well. I can scarcely sing. My voice grows weaker, and I do but murmur in whispers at times, wandering dazedly upon the strand, waiting for the waters to claim me in the end.

  


********

  


A/N: This is what comes of heavy discussions. I am not very knowledgeable of the Silmarillion, but the image of Maglor singing endlessly on the beaches, overwhelmed by regret, has always been a powerful one, and one of the few that I remember from that work. Apologies to all Sil fans for any distortions contained herein. 

  



End file.
